Golden Globes: Populism Wins

Populism was the theme at this year's Golden Globes — success at the box office translated to gold statuettes. A good number of the winners were also the highest-grossing picture in the category.

Most notably, James Cameron won best Picture, drama, and best Director for "Avatar", which is on its way to beating "Titanic" to be the biggest movie ever.

(It's interesting that among the films he beat was "The Hurt Locker," an Iraq war movie produced and directed by Cameron's ex-wife Catherine Bigelow. How many ex-spouses battle it out on the Hollywood awards stage?)

Best comedy or musical was also won by a commercial crowd-pleaser, "The Hangover." It's notable that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association voted for such a raunchy comedy, instead of a film like "Nine," which is packed with European stars or a film like "Julie & Julia," which skews older.

Robert Downey Jr.'s win for best actor for Warner Brothers' "Sherlock Holmes" also fell into this trend — it's grossed $180 million in the US. And while "Blindside" (also Warner Brothers) may have started off as a small film, it has exploded at the box office grossing $227 million, a true sleeper hit.

There were of course notable exceptions to this trend — Mo'Nique for "Precious" and Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart." The fact that Mad Men won best drama is no surprise, good for AMC and LionsGate. And it's not always about the old guard. "Glee," Fox's new musical series beat out "The Office" and "30 Rock."

A couple of notes: I spotted a number of Flip video cameras — gotta love celebrities documenting an on-camera event for posterity. Did anyone notice that they misspelled Chloe Sevigny's name? About half-way through the show, there was a great shot of James Cameron leaning over Leonardo DiCaprio's table, Leo introducing Cameron to Martin Scorsese.

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